a.Peace arrangements of 1815= beginning of conservative reaction determined to contain the liberal and nationalist forces unleashed by the French Revolution

i.Metternich and his kind were reps of the ideology known as conservatism.

The Ideology of Conservatism
Conservatism

1.As modern political philosophy, conservatism dates from 1790 when Edmund Burke wrote Reflections on the Revolution in France in reaction to French Revolution, especially radical republican and democratic ideas

a.Burke said that society was a contract, but state was nothing better than a partnership agreement

i.State was a partnership, but one between those living, dead, and to be born

1.No one generation has right to destroy partnership; each generation has duty to preserve and transmit it to the next

The Ideology of Conservatism
Burke advised?

a.Burke advised against the violent overthrow of a government by revolution, but he didn’t reject all change

i.Sudden change=unacceptable, but didn’t mean that there should never be gradual or evolutionary improvements